Defining blasphemy
No blasphemy allowed. Blasphemers must be killed. What’s blasphemy? ‘Downloading material from the internet relating to the role of women in Islamic societies.’ That’s just one example of course – there are others. In fact, if truth be told, it would be simpler and quicker to say what is not blasphemy than it would be to give a complete account of what is. What’s not blasphemy? Ummmmmm…well to be honest that’s such a short list that there doesn’t seem to be anything on it. Let me put it this way – blasphemy is anything some pious group of thugs says it is at any particular moment when they want to shut people up by having them killed. It’s basically just any old thing; see? It’s whatever They say or do that We don’t like – that’s all.
So how that plays out is that in Afghanistan it’s a capital crime to download material relating to the role of women in Islamic societies. Why? Because if God had meant women to be treated like human beings then he would have told the Prophet (pbuh) that, and God must not have told the Prophet (pbuh) that, because if God had the Prophet (pbuh) that, we would treat women like human beings, and we don’t, so he didn’t. You see? Unbreakable chain of reasoning. Therefore it’s blasphemy to read anything that might possibly in a strong light suggest anything else, and since it is blasphemy, the blasphemer has to be killed, because we’re pissed off. See? Good.
Could someone remind me again exactly why it was we invaded this delightful country in the first place, and what it was we were supposedly going to achieve?
Somewhat foolishly, I had the notion that it concerned opposing religious terrorism, and perhaps helping to free the people from tyrannical theistic oppression…
Or was it just a horrendously misguided chapter in the ongoing (expensive, deadly, and currently seemingly futile) “War on Drugs”??
Does no-one ever bother to read up on the long history of “invading Afghanistan” before they decide to try it for themselves?
Andy I take it you didnt notice that thing with the aeroplanes on 9/11 then?
Well, Richard, since our very own CIA helped fund and create Al Qaeda, and our nuclear-arned good buddies in Pakistan still hide, fund, and support them, your little answer doesn’t really answer anything, unless you think good foreign policy involves thoughtlessly lashing out and then quickly wandering off when the next pretty little invasion calls?
I know this is going to sound Colonel Blimp-ish but shouldn’t we be reminding Karzai of what Andy wrote,pointing out that US, UK and other international soldiers are not dying to allow fundamentalist idiots to rule and that unless he gets it stopped we’re buggering off?
I’ll tell you what is apparently *not* blasphemy. It’s choosing to interpret god’s word as a demand to kill and torture and subjugate and rape people *in the name* of god.
What I’m referring to are all those nice people who keep on telling us that this is not what god really wants – it’s just how evil terrorists choose to interpret god’s word for their own selfish, barbaric purposes. We atheists are naive when we interpret god literally, as some bearded guy “up there”; we’re even stupider if we think that the bible should be interpreted literally – only evil terrorists do that. So, according to these people, god does not want the believers to kill and torture the unbelievers. Fair enough.
Isn’t it weird, though, that these same people think that a cartoon is a case of blasphemy, and 9/11 is not? God seems to care more about the aesthetic image of his prophet than about the fact that people abuse his name for bloody violence. The former is a case of blasphemy, the latter not. So there you go, there’s a lot of non-blasphemy going around.
Brian are you saying that 9/11 should have gone un punished?
No, Richard. He’s saying – or rather, anyone who has their head located outside of their nether orifice is saying and has said – that 9/11 has in fact gone largely unpunished. The conquest and abandonment of Afghanistan did not end up having much to do with capturing and punishing the perpetrators of 9/11. Or did Osama bin Laden show up before a court of law somewhere when I wasn’t looking? I seem to recall that the bulk of the military might of the U.S. was sent off to do something else long, long before the job of capturing and punishing those responsible for 9/11 (who were never in Iraq) was actually finished, and long before the end of the Taliban in Afghanistan was actually accomplished, and long before anything resembling a real government (let alone a democratic government) was established in Afghanistan.
The Bush Administration failed and betrayed the Afghan people as surely as they subsequently failed and betrayed the Iraqi people they were supposedly fighting to “liberate,” and they have not in fact done anything to make the world safer from Islamic terrorism – they have only fed that beast on the blood of many, many innocents. In the process, they have succeeded in capturing, trying, and punishing only a tiny fraction of the guilty – and we will never know whether those sucked up by the black op military “justice” of the U.S. are in fact guilty of anything except defending their country from a massive external assault because of the Bush Administration’s culture of secrecy and willful defiance of every rule of national and international law. Each and every top official in the Bush administration should be on the docket and the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity for their actions in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Guantanamo Bay, and secret CIA detention centers in who knows how many countries), not to mention the internal violence they have done to the U.S. Constitution in the meantime. Every time you defend these criminals, you reveal yourself to be either a deluded rube or an amoral jerk. So which is it, Richard?
As so often, G takes my confused thoughts and converts them into an exact statement. Uncanny.
Just for the record G. I am a deluded rube, I am pleased to defend the actions of not just your goverment but mine as well,I think a robust responce was required after 9/11 and whether o.b.l has been captured or not I will continue to support this action, although that support is not a blank cheque. I also would quarell with your constant use of the word illeagal in describing the war, I think as civilized nations we have not only a right but a duty to where posible spread the cause of freedom to places like Iraq and Afganastan.I would sugest you read this young iraqi blogger http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2005/01/people-have-won.html
Sorry correction my wife says I am an amoral jerk as well!
Richard: Did I in any way criticize the original invasion of Afghanistan? I not only agree that an INTERNATIONAL military action in Afghanistan was warranted after 9/11, I was advocating UN intervention against the Taliban before 9/11! My criticism was clear: The Bush administration FAILED and BETRAYED the Afghan people by abandoning them for foolish military adventurism elsewhere before coming even remotely near the goal of establishing a stable democratic government in Afghanistan. In case you haven’t been paying attention to the news, or the posts right here in B&W about women and girls being intimidated or murdered left and right, the Taliban thugs have more influence over daily life in Afghanistan than the puppet government the U.S. installed. It is the assault on IRAQ that was unwarranted and unwise by any reasonable standard. And, if you will read what I actually said, it was the secret detentions, torture, and similar grotesque crimes against basic human and political rights that I characterized as illegal, not the war on Iraq itself – although its semi-legal justification (weapons of mass destruction which UN inspectors didn’t believe existed – and correctly so) did turn out to be bullshit.
And the rhetoric of one Iraqi does not decide the truth of the situation in Iraq, Richard. The tens of thousands of corpses have something to say as well, for those with the courage to listen. However depraved and violent our former puppet turned rebel Saddam Hussein may have been, his government would never have killed in its entire reign the number of Iraqis the US killed in the first week or two – and it’s been going steadily downhill ever since.
“since our very own CIA helped fund and create Al Qaeda”
The great thing about statements like that is that they are so in line with common prejudices, that they pass by without any scrutiny as to whether the facts bear them out.
“The relatively tiny number of Arab fighters in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet Union received no aid from the US. Thus, Osama bin Laden is not the creation of the CIA.”
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,1868708,00.html
True, Anthony. It is the Taliban itself which the U.S. helped create through our poorly chosen methods of funneling military aid to Afghan rebels, not bin Laden’s al Qaeda. It’s an important distinction simply because truth is important, but not because there is any substantial moral difference between al Qaeda and the former (and likely future) Taliban government of Afghanistan.
Wrong again G, there is no evidence that the CIA, or any US agency, helped the Taliban obtain power or form itself.
As before this is another glib comment that suits the political prejudices of those that make it, and virtually always goes unchallenged as a “fact”. The Taliban arose well after, we are talking years after, the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
No, Anthony, you are simply factually mistaken. The United States funneled weapons to Afghanistan, and did so through means that put weapons and power in the hand of the most hardened religious fanatics instead of more secular leaders (which did indeed exist at the time). I don’t give a good goddamn when they started calling themselves “The Taliban,” they are the same sort of people – and in many cases the same individual tribal chiefs.
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/search?q=days+I+will+never+forget It is not just one G. above is a piece from the blogger I linked to yesterday,there are now hundreds of blogs from Iraq and they offer a much differnt picture than the one you paint, I dont think you can judge the rights and wrongs of a conflict just by counting bodies either, the cost of fighting for freedom can often outway the cost of non action that does not mean that it is right to do nothing, in the words of Churchill ( all that it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing). The fact that there has been and there still is sectarian strife in Iraq also does not make it a failure, I would remind you that untill recently there was a bitter sectarian conflict taking place in part of the U.K that does not mean the U.K is a failure as a nation? Where I do agree with you is that to a certain extent the Afgan people have been let down by the allies, I think that G.W.B missed an opertunity that his father would never have missed by not gaining more support from the other N.A.T.O member nations and that has made the responce half hearted. I would sugest that the problem of large areas of Afganistan being under the control of war lords has much more to do with the insane war on drugs than anything else! The net effect of 40 odd years of this madness is that the price of opium has remained high and has enabled these war lords to maintain their private armies.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1543360,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1543360,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1413501,00.html I take this is the U.N that you mean we should trust with our future security G.?
“don’t give a good goddamn when they started calling themselves “The Taliban,” they are the same sort of people – and in many cases the same individual tribal chiefs.”
Shorter G.
“I don’t give a damn if the facts don’t back up my position. The US are to blame for everything and that’s final!”
All too predictable.
Anthony, I take it from your tone that you think changing my words to mean something other than what I actually said somehow counts as taking the honest and mature approach?
*sigh*
In contrast, Richard is offering thoughtful responses. I still disagree with him, but at least he is responding to what I actually wrote instead of deciding that I mean something else.
Richard, I find your conviction that the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan was ever really a war aimed at bringing freedom and democracy to the people of those nations to be astonishingly naive – but I know I will never convince you otherwise because we’ve gone down that road before: You believe what right wing radio and internet sources tell you. In contrast, I think politicians and media sources – of ALL political persuasions – lie and distort so much that one cannot trust any interpretation or explanation they give for their actions. Instead, one must judge the actual actions and their results – and I think the results for the Afghan and Iraqi people speak rather starkly against both the wisdom and morality of the Bush administration. Come to think of it, they’ve pretty much fucked things up here at home too, though not nearly as drastically. They are simultaneously criminal and incompetent, and I rather resent the fact that my grandchildren will still be paying off the economic, environmental, and political debts of the worst administration in America’s history.
G. I dont kid myself that the motive for going to war was anything other than revenge being taken by the allies for 9/11 the freedom was only a side benefit, I would be dishonest if I didnt say I support the revenge aspect as well, I think we needed a harsh responce for 9/11.
G, you can treat my sarcastic post as treating your evidence-free stance on the role of the US in the formation of the Taliban or Al Qaeda with the contempt it deserves.
Post some evidence to back up your assertions and I will of course re-consider my own views. However, since experts on Al Qaeda, like The Guardian’s Jason Burke, cannot find it, I think I can rest easy.
I can’t be bothered to do your research for you, Anthony. Seriously. I have a dissertation to write. If you want to rely on experts from THE GUARDIAN?!?!?! of all papers, be my guest. *shudder*
Anthony, the journalist Ahmed Rashid says with what certainly sounds like genuinely-informed knowledge that CIA money flowed to the Taliban via Pakistan’s ISI. He wrote a well-thought-of book on the Taliban – I think he knows what he’s talking about.
“The route goes directly through Afghanistan, and the result has been what Rashid refers to as “romancing the Taliban”: For years, he reports, U.S. economic interests, driven by oil, took precedence over human-rights concerns; only very recently did pressure from American women concerned about the repression of Afghan women finally lead to a reversal in policy. Rashid was on the scene all along, covering what he calls the new “Great Game” in Central Asia, a late 20th century version of the late 19th century colonial struggle for hegemony. “Policy was not being driven by politicians and diplomats,” he writes, “but by the secretive oil companies and intelligence services of the regional states.”
archive.salon.com/books/review/2000/04/06/rashid/